[efoods]China should use the shockwaves created by the Dubai crisis as an opportunity to buy gold and oil, a senior Chinese official who helps oversee some of the nation’s biggest enterprises was quoted as saying Monday.

Ji Xiaonan, chairman of the supervisory board for large firms at State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said the purchases could be funded by China’s foreign exchange reserves, although it wasn’t clear how much prices for these commodities would be affected by the crisis.

“Though it’s not known how much the Dubai crisis will affect the global and domestic economy, it’s going to at least last for a while, and this may give China an investment opportunity, to use part of its foreign reserves to buy gold and oil reserves,” Ji was cited as saying in a Dow Jones newswire report, which cited comments in the mainland’s state-controlled The Economic Information Daily.